Healing Logics: Culture and Medicine in Modern Health Belief Systems [Paperback]

Erika Brady (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 2001

Healing Logics provides an extensive, multicultural look at folk and alternative beliefs and practices concerning health and medicine and examines the interplay between formal and folk health care. It contains the following original contributions by leading scholars in the fields of medical anthropology and folk medicine:"Understanding Folk Medicine" by Bonnie B. O'Conner and David J. Hufford, "Invisible Hospitals: Botanicas in Ethnic Health Care" by Michael Owen Jones and Patrick A. Polk, with Ysamur Flores-Pena and Roberta J. Evanchuk, "Competing Logics and the Construction of Risk" by Diane E. Goldstein, "The New Age Sweat Lodge" by William M. Clements, "The Hozho Factor: The Logic of Navajo Healing" by Barre Toelken

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Erika Brady, PhD, holds degrees in folklore from Harvard, UCLA, and Indiana University. She is currently associate professor and director of folk studies and anthropology at Western Kentucky University. A former chaplain associate at Southeast Hospital in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, she is an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Family Practice and Community Medicine at University of South Alabama and is affiliated with the South Central Kentucky Area Health Education Center. Her book A Spiral Way: How the Phonograph Changed Ethnography appeared in 1999 (University Press of Mississippi).

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Utah State University Press; 1 edition (April 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0874214106
• ISBN-13: 978-0874214109
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #501,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Articles on Folk Medicine, January 26, 2004

By 

grasshopper4 (Arkansas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Healing Logics: Culture and Medicine in Modern Health Belief Systems (Paperback)

The articles in this book are intriguing and well-written. They deal with ways to understand traditional and unorthodox health practices within their own communities. The writers are especially interested in relationships between scientific medicine and alternative/complementary medicine. There is a great range of approaches and interests, and the book provides numerous ways to examine how various types of knowledge are valued and devalued in relation to health care. My major critique of the overall project is that it doesn't fully deal with the tension between the need to engage in scientific inquiry while working to understand traditional health care beliefs and practices that stand in contrast to scientific methods and theories.